


Treading Water

by stilinskitrash



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam-Centric, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Angst, Denial of Feelings, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Swearing, more tags will be added, not exactly enemies to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2020-12-14 22:20:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21023150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilinskitrash/pseuds/stilinskitrash
Summary: “It would take more than a little drizzle to make me ill,” the voice continued, and Adam glanced up from the pages of his textbook with hesitance and dread in the pit of his stomach.A wickedly sharp grin met him from across the locker room. Ronan Lynch was more wolf than boy. If you could even call him a boy — Ronan was 17 and had already filled out like a man. Adam slammed his book closed and shot to his feet.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS A MESS PLEASE TAKE MY TRASH  
ive incorporated some elements of witchcraft i know that are not mentioned in hp because there isn't much on divination in their universe and its practices outside of tea leaves... also no hp characters are mentioned except teachers lets pretend this exists outside of the confines of voldemort etc etc cause that will not be coming into it.

Adam did not enjoy the Quidditch locker rooms. 

He wasn’t a fan of organised sport in general, really. The only time he voluntarily engaged with Quidditch was for house matches, and the only reason he turned up was to support Blue — even though she didn’t play for his house. His flying lessons during first year hadn’t gone smoothly, to say the least, and so any further flying had been cancelled for the foreseeable future. Not being on the team or interested in flying saved him a lot of money, too.

The locker rooms were always muddy and often stank of sweat and dirt, and he found most Quidditch players — except Blue — to be too loud and too arrogant. Generally, they were just more than he was willing to handle. Not to mention the extraordinary levels of testosterone, and the self righteous exhibited by some of the players, just because they flew around a pitch on a piece of wood for an hour or so.

And the only reason he was sat in the locker rooms now was because he knew they’d be empty. 

Blue was finishing up some practice during a free period and he’d agreed to wait for her so they could walk to dinner together. He had no idea how she could do practice, today of all days. Outside, the rain battered the ground and the trees groaned against the force of the wind. But Blue was still out there, because being in the air felt more natural to her than walking on the ground. Adam really couldn’t relate.

He was paging through a copy of _ Quintessence: A Quest _ when he heard the door to the pitch fly open. The sudden cold wind made his skin break out in goosebumps. 

Without looking up from the book, he called out to Blue. “Took you long enough, have you caught a cold? Don’t come anywhere near me if you have. I’m not planning on sniffling my way through my N.E.W.T.S.”

“I think you’ll find that I have a perfectly functioning immune system.”

Adam froze. The voice that had answered his call was not that of his spunky friends. Blue certainly did _ not _ have an Irish accent, nor a voice that low.

“It would take more than a little drizzle to make me ill,” the voice continued, and Adam glanced up from the pages of his textbook with hesitance and dread in the pit of his stomach. 

A wickedly sharp grin met him from across the locker room. Ronan Lynch was more wolf than boy. If you could even call him a boy — Ronan was 17 and had already filled out like a man. Adam slammed his book closed and shot to his feet.

“What are you— where’s Blue?” he demanded, trying not to seem as unnerved as he felt. He was very rarely alone with Ronan. In fact, he couldn’t remember ever being in the same room as him and no one else. In the 6 years he’d attended Hogwarts, Adam had interacted with Ronan almost exclusively in snarky jokes and sarcastic jabs. 

Ronan fiddled lazily with the bands on his wrist, “she’s coming.”

Adam’s eyes narrowed. “What were you doing with her?”

“Woah, relax, Parrish.” Ronan scoffed, his eyes rolling back. “I promise she’s not fucking dead. Your little girlfriend asked me to train with her.”

_ Girlfriend? _ Adam’s brows knitted together. He wasn’t dating Blue. Not since fourth year. _ That _was well and truly over. They were just friends, so where had Ronan got the idea that they were still together? Maybe he paid even less attention to those around him and the rumour mill than Adam had suspected. Maybe Ronan knew and was just messing with him.

He opened his mouth to ask when the devil herself burst into the locker room, dark wet hair plastered to her face and the corners of her mouth turned up excitedly.

She grinned at both of the boys, “well, that was fun.”

Ronan’s smile grew sharper, “positively exhilarating, Sargent. Let’s do it again sometime. Granted that your boyfriend is okay with us hanging out.” He added the last bit with a heavy dose of sarcasm and a pointed look at Adam. His hands balled into fists.

Blue barked an abrupt laugh before whacking Ronan on the back. “Adam’s _ not _ my boyfriend. Get with the times, Lynch.” She stepped over to her locker before stripping off her wet Quidditch gear, unphased by the two boys in the room. “And even if he was, no man tells me what to do, thank you very much.”

“Clearly.” Ronan bit, rubbing the tension out of the muscles in his back. The dark ink of his tattoo crept over his shoulder, peeking out from under his Quidditch gear. “Otherwise, maybe you wouldn’t have sent that quaffle flying right at me today. What a shame it would have been for everyone if you’d mutilated my face. I know a couple of people who would string your guts.”

“But alas, your skills are just _ too _ good,” she grinned. “Next time I’ll get you, and willingly suffer the wrath of your many, _ many _ fans. Anyway, a crooked nose might just improve your _ don’t-fuck-with-me _ aesthetic.”

Adam coughed loudly. He was hungry and tired and entirely uneasy in Ronan’s presence. He was an overpowering force, a perfectly sculpted face with fiery wit and stormy anger. Adam toed the line between hating him on principle and being totally enamoured with him. It had been that way for as long as he could remember. Thinking about Ronan more abstractly than as the Gryffindor student he hung out with in group situations made his forehead furrow painfully. 

“Got somewhere to be?” Ronan quirked a brow at him. Adam tried his best not to turn red. 

“Yes, not that it’s any of your business.” His words lacked bark or bite.

Ronan raised his hands in mock surrender, then shrugged off his soaking Gryffindor anorak. Adam shifted his eyes away quickly. Blue was back in her uniform and had already cast a spell so that her hair was as dry as a bone, her eyeliner was reapplied and her hair adorned with the usual amount of eclectic hair slides. Adam was still acutely aware of Ronan changing just behind him. His nerves twitched.

“Let’s go,” he mumbled, grabbing his book and pulling Blue away by the arm.

“Bye, Lynch!” Blue yelled as they left the locker room, “what the hell’s your issue, Adam? Did Ronan do something to you?” There was genuine concern in her voice, and Adam had the awful thought that everything would be much easier to explain if Ronan _ had _done something to him. 

He shook his head feverently. “No, no. I just… he just rubs me the wrong way.”

Blue nodded unsurely, giving him a funny look as they headed through the corridors towards the Great Hall. They could hear voices up ahead, and Adam could smell a warm, enticing dinner. “If you say so, but you’re acting kinda weird,” she shrugged. 

—

Adam fiddled self consciously with the holes in his sweater as they entered the Great Hall. It was a bad habit considering he couldn’t afford to replace it if he unravelled the whole thing. But sometimes, when he could just feel this anxiety eating away at him, it was a perfect and discreet distraction. He picked at a dark loose thread silently. 

He hadn’t sat at his own house’s table — Slytherin — in a long time, and not unless he had to. Most meals he sat at the Ravenclaw table with Blue or followed her wherever else she’d decided to sit for that meal on that day. Most Slytherin’s were fine, and Adam wasn’t mad about being one. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel like he belonged there. He did. There was a sense of enormous vindication from being sorted into a house that prided ambition and self-reliance and respect above all else. The moment the sorting hat had called out _ Slytherin _ , every fibre of Adam’s being had felt known. None of the other houses felt like _ him _. Unfortunately, he’d failed to make many close friends there. 

“Blue! Adam!” someone was maniacally waving them down from the other end of the Ravenclaw table. Blue grinned and skipped over, approaching one Henry Cheng. Adam trailed after her begrudgingly. He found Henry to be an unusual and often irritating figure, his hair as thick and spiky as his eyebrows, the lines of his face sharply cut as if carved from stone. He was dramatic in a way that made Adam’s eyes roll back in his head. He was witty and too smart for his own good. He was also Blue’s friend, so his friend too, by default. 

Henry was sat amongst several Ravenclaw sixth years he actually recognised, and one Gryffindor student he very knew well, who was deep in conversation.

Gansey. Adam elbowed Blue in the side but she’d had already seen him. She was glaring at Richard Gansey the third, who hadn’t even realised she was there yet. Poor, oblivious bastard.

“_ Ahem _,” Blue sat herself down at the table with enough force that everyone at within five feet turned to stare at her. Including Gansey. The look on his face was truly golden. Bemused adoration.

“Jane,” he broke out in a grin, “you look radiant. How are you?”

“Gansey, you look… the same.” She regarded him, meeting his excitement at her arrival with disdain. A blend of fire and ice. They were a constant push and pull but Adam knew how it would end. It was only a matter of time. Even when he’d been dating Blue, he’d noticed that she had far more electric chemistry with the Gryffindor boy than she’d ever had with him.

At first, that had upset him. He had really, genuinely, fancied Blue. Liked her as more than a friend. He was way past it now, but back then too much of his happiness and security had relied on his relationship with her. She was his closest friend for a while before Gansey came into the picture, and outside of Hogwarts he felt like he didn’t really have anyone else. 

They’d burned too fast, too brightly, until they just burned out. Adam let Blue go. Blue let Adam go. They’d been better friends than lovers ever since.

A frown flickered across Gansey’s face at Blue’s attitude, so quickly that Adam almost missed it. It took a lot to break Gansey’s carefully composed facade, but Blue generally had a good go at it. She was usually pretty effective. 

Gansey’s mouth opened and closed like a goldfish before he nodded, “oh, good.”

“Adam, pass me the potatoes.” Blue grumbled, grabbing a bowl of peas from Henry, who was grinning from ear to ear. The boy _ lived _ for the drama.

The usual banter ensued. Sarky remarks, rude comments, crude jokes, loud laughter. Adam lapped it up, but was happy to stand a little on the sidelines of it all. It was affirming to feel a part of a group, no matter how haphazard and dysfunctional. 

During dessert, he chanced a glance across the room at the Gryffindor table. Often, they would sit there too, with Gansey and Ronan, who were as thick as thieves. They’d been brothers in another life. Tonight, Ronan had chosen another crowd. 

He was the brightest energy in the room, and the darkest. People were drawn to him as much as they were afraid of him. Ronan was sat tonight with a Slytherin named Kavinsky who Adam absolutely detested. He was slimy and violent and, quite frankly, terrifying. He was also one of Adam’s dormies. Which was akin to a nightmare. Kavinsky knocked his shoulder against Ronan’s as he made a joke and Adam felt his stomach roll. He tore his eyes away.

“Adam, everything alright?” Gansey was staring at him peculiarly. He must’ve zoned out for too long. 

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry.” He nodded, not entirely convincingly, but for once Gansey didn’t push him. He hated being fussed over. Pity was the last thing he wanted from anyone. Adam looked back across the hall and could’ve sworn that Ronan looked away at the same time their eyes happened to meet.

—

Ronan and Adam had history. Literally. They were in the same History of Magic class. 

Whilst Adam was lumped at a desk with Tad Carruthers, who thoroughly got on his nerves, he had a front row seat to the _ Gansey and Ronan Show _ across the classroom. The two Gryffindors were yin and yang. Total opposites, who always bickered like children but messed around like best friends, and always captured the attention of the class. Both were too smart for their own good, except Gansey was the only one who gave a shit about his education. Ronan would have rather been anywhere else, Adam suspected.

“Adam? Did you hear what I said?”

Tad’s voice brought him back to Earth, like nails on a chalkboard. He didn’t intend to be mean. Tad wasn’t a _ bad _person. He just lacked knowledge of social cues, was inexplicably irritating, and made strange comments about Adam’s hair and eyes. He didn’t dwell on the latter too much.

“Sorry, I didn’t get much sleep last night.” Adam sighed.

“S’alright,” Tad beamed, “I could give you some of the sleep potion I use? It’s totally safe.”

Tad had almost failed potions last year — Adam declined the offer. 

“If you say so. Did you do the summer reading?”

_ Did he do the summer reading... _ Adam had little else to do over the summer _ but _do the summer readings he’d been assigned. That was in between work, of course. And getting the books himself was a little tricky, but Blue often sent him her copies when she was done with them. Back home, he worked a muggle job at a mechanics workshop and a night shift at a warehouse, as to help pay for his education at Hogwarts and to chip in at home. When he wasn’t working, Adam was doing everything in his power to avoid being in the house. Both of his parents were Muggles, and they treated his magic with an uncomfortable brew of distaste and disgust, if they even acknowledged it.

He would hang out at the local library where he could listen to free audiobooks and use the internet, or sit in the cheapest coffee shop he could find and order their cheapest coffee to keep him going through studying. His parents never wondered why he wasn’t home. As long as he put money on the table, they hardly bothered him at all.

All he said in response to Tad was “yes,” though, because he wasn’t about to divulge his life story to Tad Carruthers, of all people.

Gansey snorted loudly and uncharacteristically, drawing everyone’s attention to him. Beside him, Ronan was grinning wickedly as Gansey covered his own mouth with his hand and slowly turned beetroot red. 

“So childish,” Tad muttered scornfully. Adam could tell he was only saying it to seem mature. He’d seen Tad hover around Gansey before like a persistent fly.

“Yeah,” he mumbled back absently. The two Gryffindor boys entered into a war of elbows, hissing at one another wildly. Adam yearned. He couldn’t quite place it, but his chest felt hollow and his stomach bottomed out as he watched them. His friendship with Blue and Gansey was good — but it was just different. It wasn’t what Gansey and Ronan had. But Adam had never met anyone quite like either Richard Gansey III or Ronan Lynch. He wouldn't have been surprised if people like them only existed within the confines of the wizarding world, too big and too magic to exist simply.

Professor Binns began heckling a Slytherin who’d fallen asleep at the front of the class and brought Adam back to reality. The batty old dead professor rattled something off about Gregorovitch’s wand making tendencies. Adam needed to stop thinking about Gansey and Lynch so abstractly. A scenario where the three of them fluidly got along as a trio was almost hilarious. And, after all, Adam Parrish was unknowable. It certainly felt that way sometimes.

—

If Blue’s favourite place was the Quidditch pitch, Adam’s was the Forbidden Forest. There was something about the way the trees moved and whispered secrets to him that felt like understanding. Like being understood. He wasn’t afraid of the creatures (not the ones that would hurt him, anyway) or the darkness, and found beauty in the few open spaces and glens. It was an escape from the chaos and noise of the castle. It was his. 

He could wander through the trees for hours, making notes in his journal or reading, or lying amongst the roots of an old tree and daydreaming. He’d never told anyone he came out there, not even Blue. It was something almost sacred to him. 

Adam was on his way back to the castle when he passed Hagrid’s hut and caught sight of a familiar buzzed head. He stopped dead in his tracks. Ronan was leaving Hagrid’s, but the two were still deep in conversation. Ronan’s hands waved about animatedly, his jumper pushed up to his elbows. They both laughed at something Hagrid said before bidding goodbye to one another. Adam gawked with a furrowed brow. He watched Ronan ascend the hill back up to the castle, until he was even less than a tiny spec in the distance.

— 

He’d been going over a textbook for Defence Against the Dark Arts on his bed when he heard a scuffle in the common room, a loud _ crash _ followed by muffled shouting. The moment he decidedly brushed it off as some first years being stupid, there was another worrying noise. Adam slammed his book closed indignantly. The library would be a quieter study space — he’s just relocate there.

When Adam pushed open the door to the common room, he knew instantly that something was wrong. It wasn’t hard to guess though, considering the mess that had been made in the hour or so since he’d last been in there. The Slytherin common room had been upended. The table that was usually nestled between the velvet sofas had been overturned, the carpet rumpled, stacks of books sprawled dangerously close to the open fire. Students were pressed up against the walls of the room like the floor was slowly becoming lava and they had nowhere left to go. 

He blinked twice at the picture of Joseph Kavinsky and Ronan Lynch in the middle of it all. Ronan’s knee was pressed sharply against Kavinsky’s throat as he pinned him against an armchair. Blood trickled from the corner of Kavinsky’s wicked grin. A meteor could have crashed into the common room and Ronan’s eyes wouldn’t have left Kavinsky’s, judging from the intensity of his fixed stare. Ronan was a predator, a lion with a gazelle caught in his jaw. 

So many _ questions _ — where to start? How had Ronan gotten into the common room? _ Why _had Ronan come into the common room? Why was he fighting with Kavinsky? No one spoke a word. Adam broke the silence with the only thing he could think to say.

“You better clean this up.”

Ronan’s pointed focus cracked. He whipped his head around to Adam, something dangerous flickering in his eyes. The students who hadn’t dared to say anything murmured amongst themselves now.

“Parrish,” he said, with unnerving calm. His shoulders rolled, like he was shaking the tension out of them. The scene was something from a renaissance painting.

“And here I thought you were just Dick’s pet,” Kavinsky slurred, spitting red against Ronan’s unbuttoned shirt.

He didn’t miss a beat. Ronan’s fist collided with Kavinsky’s face and splattered blood across the room. The sound of the impact was a heavy, wet _ thump _ and Adam instinctively flinched whilst fighting the urge to look away. His breath caught in his throat.

“Take it outside,” Adam bit, unable to tear his eyes away from Ronan’s knuckles, blooming purple and turning raw. “Now.” 

Grabbing Kavinsky by his collar, Ronan pulled him from the armchair and tossed him to the floor. Adam felt nauseous at the state of Kavinsky, less because he had any care for his well being, and more because of the manic way he was laughing. Kavinsky was masochistic. The idea of it curled Adam’s hands into fists and chewed away at the most vulnerable parts of him. He didn’t understand — didn’t _ want _ to understand.

But Ronan was doing as Adam had asked. His expression had gone unreadably blank. He brushed himself off, spat on Kavinsky, and exited the Slytherin common room without another word. Once he’d left, everyone around him visibly relaxed. One of Kavinsky’s mates who hadn’t dared interfere before — Prokopenko — knelt by his side and hauled him to his feet. 

It was then that Adam realised how fast his heart was beating. It felt like the few minutes right before a panic attack, where your chest feels tight and you’re too aware of every nerve. He’d forgotten he was holding his books. He’d forgotten he was heading to the library. He felt a little like he was waking from a dream, looking back on the incredulity of what had just happened.

Students moved around him, picking up the damage Ronan had left behind, rearranging the furniture. Adam stared at Kavinsky’s blood on the carpet until someone cast a spell and it disappeared like it had never been there.

—

“He did _ what?” _Blue guffawed with a mouthful of yoghurt.

Adam pushed his food around his plate. He wasn’t hungry. 

They were sat for breakfast before many other people had come down yet. He’d sent an owl to Blue’s dorm to ask her to meet him early, and was sort of surprised she’d managed to drag herself out of bed. Granted, she did have an insane case of bed head. But Adam had wanted to talk with her with everything still fresh in his mind, and without the audience of Gansey or Henry. 

“I don’t know what would’ve happened if I hadn’t walked in,” he muttered, shaking his head. A few more students filed into the Great Hall, yawning and chatting.

“God, I’m glad you did. Should I talk to him about it?”

Adam’s eyes widened. “_ No _.”

She frowned, “why not?” 

“I’m not a gossip.”

Blue shovelled another mouthful of pink yoghurt into her mouth. “But you just—”

“_ Blue _.”

She sighed with theatricality and raised a hand in defence of herself. “Fine. You say that like the other twenty students in the room are gonna keep their mouths shut, too,” she shrugged.

If they knew what was good for them, they would. Anyone who had more than half a brain and had seen Ronan in play on the Quidditch pitch would know better than to get on his bad side. Also, if anyone snitched, Ronan would surely get in trouble with the teachers for causing such a stir.

Adam’s peace and quiet was disturbed by a too-cheery “Jane! Parrish!” as Richard Gansey III descended on the breakfast table. Adam helped himself to some scrambled egg and forced his thoughts of Ronan from his mind.

—

Autumn was in full swing at Hogwarts, and Halloween was fast approaching. The trees of the Forbidden Forest were coloured in shades of ochre and auburn. The warm glow of enchanted candles lit the hallways earlier than before, and students waddled across the castle wrapped in layers of scarves and hats. Adam loved summer the most, but there was something magical about autumn. Something inherently enchanting.

Gansey and Henry didn’t understand Adam’s affinity for Divination. As someone who was more often than not practical and pragmatic, they didn’t see how he could believe in or practice a branch of magic that could be so imprecise and untrustworthy. He couldn’t explain or understand it either; it was just something that called to him. Blue, who came from a family of Seers but wasn’t one herself, empathised. Whenever he was invited to stay at Blue’s, he’d end up spending more time with her eccentric family than with Blue herself. That was probably another factor in their breakup.

So there Adam was, on the floor of the Forbidden Forest, with an obsidian mirror and a determined intention to scry. He dug his palms into the mossy floor, grounding himself and his mind. He’d cast his circle and called upon Cerridwen. Carefully, Adam began to pour his chalice of mugwort over the surface of the mirror. He saw the mirror as a living thing, awake and calling to him. He asked it for answers, for truth, for guidance. The leaves of the trees above him rustled like they were speaking in whispers, and Adam tried desperately to understand.

_ See me. Hear me. I’m here. Show me. _

He wasn’t looking for the future; just for guidance. He scrunched his eyes closed as his head began to pound slowly, and sudden swirls of black in his vision began to make him dizzy. Adam pushed through the mist, forcing himself to look deeper into the darkness of the mirror.

A branch cracked behind him and Adam’s concentration broke.

Someone stood a few feet from him, half sheltered by foliage. It took Adam a few seconds to clear his mind and reconnect with the present. The fog cleared, he unclenched his fists, the thumping in his head died down. When he focused his eyes, he recognised the figure instantly. His stomach hollowed out.

From beside a tree, Ronan Lynch stared at him as if he’d never seen him before. He wasn’t in his Gryffindor robes; he was dressed entirely in black, as he often was at weekends and after class hours. Black jeans, black shirt, black leather jacket. He was a figure of death. He wasn’t sure he’d go as far as to say an _ angel _ of death, but Ronan was definitely _ something. _ Adam managed to push himself to his feet.

“Ronan,” he said, unsure of the tone of his own voice. It was all he could think to say. No one had seen him scrying before. It almost felt like he’d been walked in on whilst getting changed. Adam was vulnerable.

Ronan eyed the items at Adam’s feet. “If you’re trying to look into the future, can you let me know if the Kenmare Kestrels win next Saturday? I have a bet with Czerny.”

“I wouldn’t think you’d be interested in divination,” Adam shrugged with attempted nonchalance.

He took a step towards Adam. “I’m interested. Doesn’t mean I believe in any of it. And I think Trelawney would be batshit enough without all the crystal balls and tea leaves.”

Adam’s rolled his eyes, but not before they drifted to Ronan’s knuckles. It’d been a week since the incident in the Slytherin common room. By lunch, everyone seemed to know about it. Ronan had been given detention for who knows how long, but so had Kavinsky. Blue had kept bringing it up, much to Gansey’s disdain, purely because she relished in the idea of Kavinsky getting beaten to a pulp by her friend. Adam couldn’t deny that the idea made him smile a little too.

The skin pulled over Ronan’s knuckles was angrily red and scabbing over. Noticing Adam’s gaze, he flexed his fingers casually. They were ringed. 

“Are you okay?” Adam asked suddenly, despite himself, hoping Ronan knew what he meant.

“Yes,” Ronan nodded.

Adam had been through this exact interaction a hundred times, but usually on the receiving end. _ Are you okay? Yes. Always. _ The only difference was that the other person usually didn’t care if he was lying or not. He usually was.

He narrowed his eyes, “you don’t have to bullshit me. What was it all about?”

Ronan scoffed. “Do I need a reason to rock K’s shit?”

Something began crawling its way up Adam’s throat. Anxiety? Anger? “Yes. You could get expelled, Ronan.”

He shrugged, “life would go on.”

Adam couldn’t fathom it — couldn’t imagine not caring about his existence at Hogwarts. Without Hogwarts, Adam was another cog in an abusive and oppressive system, working a dead end job, trapped in a small town; hopeless. The school was his life. The school was his way out. In the muggle world, claustrophobia worried away at him until he felt like he was suffocating. He couldn’t stay there.

His reaction to Ronan’s words must have been visceral, because Ronan sighed with purposeful exasperation.

“We’re different, Parrish.” _ That was true _. “And anyway, what goes on between me and K, it’s…” he let his words fade into nothing. He couldn’t elaborate, couldn’t explain, wouldn’t. Adam tugged at the loose threads in the sleeves of his sweater.

“He’s not worth it.”

“I know.”

The two were stood at a stalemate. Two magicians in the forest, locked and loaded with secrets, ready to explode. Adam didn’t bother asking what Ronan had been doing. He wouldn’t get a straight answer. Breaking the ensuing silence, Adam began to gather up the things he’d brought out with him. He was admittedly a little miffed about having his scrying interrupted. He’d felt like he’d been getting somewhere. Now the sun was beginning to set, and Adam wasn’t foolish enough to roam the Forbidden Forest after dusk.

Then Ronan was beside him, grabbing Adam’s mirror and helping him make it look like he’d never been there. He kicked the dirt around where Adam had been with his heavy boots, until the mugwort from the mirror blended into the decaying leaves and mud. Adam eyed him uneasily.

“You don’t have to help. I’ve got this.”

One side of Ronan’s mouth tugged upwards. “I know.”

—

With a thump, Gansey dumped his stuff down beside Adam, startling him awake. He was in the library, and had been since… well, he wasn’t sure for how long. Which probably explained how he’d fallen asleep. 

“Have you been to bed at all since I last saw you?” Gansey frowned, unpacking some books from his bag.

“Depends on when the last time you saw me was.”

Gansey’s brows hiked up disapprovingly, “your grades aren’t worth destroying your health.”

He didn’t have the energy to even respond to that, to begin to unpack how wrong Gansey was and how differently things were for the two of them. Instead, he dropped his head back against the table.

Next to him, Gansey opened up his copy of _ One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. _“You’re going to Slughorn’s party tonight, right?”

Adam hadn’t given it much thought. Slughorn had ambushed him in the hall a few days prior and gushed about how he must attend, and Adam could hardly say _ no _. Slughorn’s parties were a chore to a lot of students he invited — like Gansey — but Adam felt something akin to being honoured. He knew they were a vanity thing for Slughorn, a way to make connections with wizards and witches from powerful families or with special talents. But Adam wasn’t rich, he wasn’t a child of a famous Quidditch player or Auror or socialite, and he wasn’t a legacy student. That meant Professor Slughorn saw something in Adam; potential. It meant that Adam’s hard work and grades were succeeding in proving his capability and worth. And, admittedly, Adam saw a chance to propel himself forward.

So he nodded, cheek against the cold wood. “Should be, yeah,” he mumbled.

“Good,” Gansey sighed, “I don’t think I can handle Ronan alone tonight. He’s been in a bad mood all week, and he loves winding Slughorn up.”

He raised his head off the table too fast and made himself momentarily lightheaded. “Ronan’s coming?”

“Yes, shocking, I know. He always gets invited, he just doesn’t come. I think he was seeing how far he could push Slughorn before he just gave up on collecting him as another one of his _ trophies _.” Adam could hear the distaste in Gansey’s voice.

Both Gansey and Ronan were from said rich, influential families, _ and _both legacies. Ripe for Slughorn’s picking. The Lynch’s and Gansey’s were purebloods, unlike Adam, who was muggle born. Everyone knew about the murder of the Obliviator Niall Lynch by a dark wizard, and everyone knew the name Declan Lynch as a recent Hogwarts alumni. Gansey’s family were practically household names, as his dad was the deputy Minister of Magic. Gansey’s sister, Helen, was also the increasingly infamous beater for the Wimbourne Wasps.

“So why’s he coming tonight then?” Adam asked, bemused.

Gansey shrugged, flipping over a page of his book. “Beats me. I had a good go at convincing him. I told him we would both be going, and he just brushed me off like usual. Then an hour or so later he changed his mind. I didn’t push it.”

He gnawed at his bottom lip and nodded. “Right.” 

“Oh, hey,” Gansey grinned at him, then licked the pad of his thumb and reached for Adam. Instinctively he flinched back, dodging Gansey’s outstretched hand and staring at him wildly.

“What the hell?”

“You just— you have some ink on your face, from sleeping on your work. Sorry, I’m not trying to be weird.”

Adam sagged a little (and tried not to blush.) “Oh.” 

When Gansey had turned back to his textbook, Adam tried as discreetly as he could to scrub at his cheek and blindly rub the ink off. The palm of his hand came away smudgy and black. Grumbling, Adam pushed back his chair and slid away to the nearest boys bathroom.

He stared at himself in the mirror of the empty bathroom. The inky blot was mostly gone. He felt the same embarrassment you experience when someone has to tell you that you have food in your teeth, or toilet paper on your shoe. Except, some of his embarrassment came from his reaction to Gansey, who had only been trying to help. He focused on his reflection in the dirt spotted mirror.

Months spent back home over the summer meant his cheeks had hollowed out a little again. It made his high cheekbones even sharper, but Blue had always described his features as _ delicate _. There was something off about his own appearance. It was as if he was unfamiliar to himself. He was a collection of moving parts that all told different stories. Adam wanted to put his fist through the glass.

—

He’d lucked out whilst browsing charity shops last year, and luckily the formalwear he’d found still fit. The blazer wasn’t noticeably worn, nor were the trousers. Any small tears or rips were easily fixable. Adam wasn’t an expert with a needle and thread, but he was capable. He combed his hair and cleaned his face, and met Gansey and Ronan by the Great Hall.

“You scrub up well, Parrish, even if they are muggle clothes.” Ronan jeered as he approached. He was dressed in more formal wizarding attire — Adam didn’t have the luxury of affording outfits like that. It made him stick out. He reminded himself for the hundredth time that it could be worse. 

Gansey pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Just thought I’d warn you that I overheard Tad Carruthers mentioning attending tonight,” he said pointedly at Adam. Ronan scoffed.

Confused, Adam blinked. “Okay, so?”

The other two boys stared at him.

“_ What? _” 

Gansey deliberated momentarily on how to say whatever it was that was going on. Adam could see the cogs turning in his head. He was well known for wording things in just _slightly _the wrong way, even whilst being well meaning. Blue could vouch for that. “Well, it’s a little obvious that—”

“Carruthers fancies you, Parrish. Can’t fucking get enough of you.” Ronan cut in quickly, elbowing Gansey’s side.

He’d brushed off his nagging suspicions of just this at first, but it had taken Adam a good year to realise Blue liked him back. And that she’d been flirting with him. But Adam just didn’t think about those kind of things too often — it felt like vanity to deduce that someone’s actions meant they _ liked _you. 

Adam guffawed, “no. No, he doesn’t.” 

Ronan’s jaw locked, hard.

“It’s possible he has a crush, yes,” Gansey expanded with more delicate finesse than Ronan’s brute bluntness. “He just talks about you. A lot. When you aren’t there.”

His palms felt a little sweaty. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Flattered or angry? Maybe neither. Maybe both. Ronan watched Adam digest and accept what they were trying to tell him with intense scrutiny. 

“Can we just get to the party?” Adam bit, turning away from them both. He didn’t want them to notice if he’d flushed red.

“Yeah, of course, Adam.” Gansey said behind him, following suit. 

Slughorn greeted them at the door, dressed in ridiculously eccentric robes and rosy cheeked. He clapped Adam on the back, almost propelling him into the room face first.

“So glad you could join us, Adam! Good to see you, Gansey,” he cheered, arms open as he smiled at the three boys.

“And, _ my _, do my eyes deceive me? Ronan Lynch!”

Adam glanced at Ronan, who was glowering resentfully. The potions professor seemed oblivious to the energy that was radiating off of him. 

“Come in, come in!” Slughorn ushered.

The room was dimly lit, as per, and seven other students were already seated at the table with drinks. Their discussion beforehand must’ve set them back a little in terms of punctuality. Adam scanned the table. He didn’t recognise or know everyone. Henry Cheng was there, though, talking cheerily with a ginger Ravenclaw. On the left side of the table sat Tad, who smiled at Adam in greeting as the three of them shuffled further into the room.

Adam averted his eyes and took a chair on the right end of the table. 

The dinner was the same as usual. Slughorn asked almost invasive questions about students personal lives and families, and hinted at their futures and possible achievements. Adam was tuned in the whole time, as if he were attending just a normal class. Except, everything _ wasn’t _the same as usual.

This time, Ronan sat beside him, fingers looping in and out of his wristbands agitatedly. Another seat down, Gansey was trying to engage in conversation with some of the other students, but kept getting pulled into inside jokes with Henry. Then, the moment Slughorn drew his attention to Ronan, Adam sensed trouble.

“Mr Lynch,” Slughorn called from across the table, a goblet in his hand. “How’s your brother doing post-Hogwarts?”

He gritted his teeth in response. “Alive.” 

Professor Slughorn laughed, “glad to hear it! Is he settling in at the Ministry? I heard he’s batting for the same position that your father held.”

Adam noticed Gansey’s head snap around from talking to Henry to focus instead on the conversation behind him. They were set next to a viper, poised to strike. The conversation could go a variety of ways, depending on what part of Slughorn’s words Ronan chose to focus on. The dead father, or the fractured sibling relationship? He was already treading on a minefield. There was no turning back.

“Nah,” Ronan shrugged, “Declan’s up for the Minister of Assholery.”

Gansey choked on his drink. A few of the other students sniggered. “Ronan—”

“And I know what everyone’s thinking,” Ronan continued, staring Slughorn down. “That he only got the job at the Ministry because of my father. A pity hire. A legacy hire. Whatever the fuck you want to call it. And because he was a ‘_ big boss _’ at the Ministry, and because he’s dead. Honestly, I couldn’t give a fuck why they hired him.”

“_ Ronan _,” Gansey hissed.

“What? I’m just getting ahead of the press.” He joked, but Adam couldn’t see much humour in his face. The other students around the table didn’t dare say a word now, letting silence blanket the table. Even Henry was quiet.

“Well, Mr Lynch, I’m sure no one here would suggest Declan doesn’t deserve his job at the Ministry,” Slughorn said delicately, looking apprehensive and shocked at Ronan’s vulgar and blunt outburst.

This didn’t dissuade Ronan from his tangent. “People can suggest whatever the fuck they want. It won’t make it true and it won’t make it relevant.”

“Shit, Ronan,” Adam muttered, “he only asked a question.”

Ronan’s eyes flitted to his, a cold hard blue. Something flickered across his expression, something that trapped between the wavering anger that raged inside of Ronan. Adam refused to back down from his stare. He could see the hurt, even if Ronan continuously tried hard to mask it.

Ronan looked away first. “I only answered it.”

“You’re impossible,” Gansey sighed as Henry managed to get the other students to lapse back into conversation, escaping the awkward silence. “How hard is it to be civil?”

“I was being perfectly fucking civil,” Ronan bit.

After the food, the party became less of a dinner event and more casual. Slughorn enchanted the table and chairs out of the way and put on some wizard music, encouraging the students to mingle with him and one another further. This meant that anyone Adam hadn’t been sitting close to at the meal would now have the opportunity to speak to him. See: Tad Carruthers. He had been talking awkwardly but functionally with Emily Welton, a sixth year Hufflepuff, when Tad siddled over.

“Parrish, you look dapper tonight,” Tad smiled. His hair was gelled back, and he was wearing a ridiculously frilly dress shirt. Adam struggled to form words as he thought about what Gansey and Ronan had told him before the party.

“Uh, thanks.”

“Slughorn’s dinners are great, aren’t they? Exclusive members, great company, and he doesn’t mind us having a little drink or two. Lynch’s outburst was a little dramatic, don’t you think? It’s awful what happened to his father, but it’s been _ years _, you know. Anyway, I’ve got some gin, do you want some?”

Adam blinked. He was trying to rein in his temper at the levels of annoyance Tad was sending him through. The ignorance and naivety of his words just _ tired _him. His eyes scanned the room for Gansey.

“Do you want some?” Tad said, quirking a brow.

He shook his head slowly, “want what?”

“Gin,” Tad rolled his eyes. “Keep up, Adam!”

“I don’t drink.”

Tad pouted like a child, sagging his shoulders with added emphasis. “Oh, boo. Hey, I know that Lynch drinks!” 

Adam’s brow creased, “Ronan’s not—”

“Hey, Parrish.”

Nevermind. Ronan had materialised beside him, and — for maybe the first time — was a very welcome sight. His expression was hard, and he was already clutching a drink that smelled suspiciously like Firewhiskey. The lines of his face seemed to be cut sharper in the shadowy lighting. Adam wondered if they’d hurt to touch.

The hair on his arm stood on end when Ronan’s fingers brushed his wrist. He bent his head towards Adam’s ear, and Adam was surprised that Ronan had known to speak into his hearing ear — not the deaf one. Or perhaps it was just a lucky guess. He felt frozen to the spot he stood in.

“I need to talk to you,” his voice was low, but still loud enough for Tad to hear. Loud enough for Tad’s expression to slacken.

Adam nodded once. “Okay.”

He followed Ronan out to the empty balcony that accompanied the party room, leaving behind Tad Carruthers. The autumn air was biting, as the season shuffled closer to winter, and the stars twinkled brightly above them. No light pollution, Adam thought, no harsh lights to drown out their glow. The chatter of the party and the music was merely ambient noise. He exhaled.

“What is it?” Adam asked after Ronan had closed the balcony doors behind them, unsure of himself and the boy in front of him, all sharp angles and hooded looks.

“Oh, nothing.” Ronan shrugged. He leaned against the balcony’s walls and held his drink to his lips. In the light of the candles illuminating the balcony, Adam could see a faint pink flush in Ronan’s cheeks from the alcohol. He must’ve been drinking during dinner, and he hadn’t noticed.

Adam took a few steps towards him. “Sorry, what?” 

“You looked like you were about to blow a fucking fuse, Parrish. I figured I’d give you an out. You’re not one to make a scene.”

“Wow, my knight in shining armor.” Adam said sourly, but something tightened in his chest. He was grateful. Another moment longer with Tad and he might’ve snapped. So, why was his mouth speaking so harshly?

Ronan scoffed, “alright, I won’t help you out next time then,_ princess _.”

Adam’s face was on fire. He turned to face the dark outline of the mountains that sheltered the school. Silence settled over them like a delicate film. Ronan drank from his goblet and stared out at the same landscape as Adam.

“Thank you,” he said, finally, crossing his arms over his chest. The chilly air had made his skin break out in goosebumps. Ronan was an arms length away from him, but the distance felt suddenly and overwhelmingly immeasurable. Adam’s nails were sharp in the flesh of his palm.

Ronan shrugged, “it's okay. He’s a freak.”

He wasn’t sure exactly _ why _he said it, but the next words that fell from his mouth were; “because he has a crush on me?” It was a nasty assumption, a concoction of self-deprecation and something daring inside of Adam. 

Beside him, Ronan stilled with his drink still pressed to his lips.

Gently, he lowered the drink and turned to Adam, leaning propped up against the balcony by his elbow. “Do you have any self awareness at all, Parrish?”

Adam glowered. “Of course I fucking do.” He was aware of all the disadvantages he had been given in his lot in life. He was aware that as a muggle born wizard from a low income, working class background, he had to work _ twice _as hard as everyone else. He was aware that he sometimes came off as having too much contempt for people with different values to him and that he was pushing himself to a breaking point. Ronan sighed, as if he could tell exactly what Adam was thinking without him saying a word more.

“That’s not what I meant,” Ronan said.

The door behind them opened.

Gansey’s eyes darted between them, “is everything okay out here?”

Ronan turned around and let his empty goblet clatter to the floor. The air around Adam felt denser. It was harder to breathe evenly. “Fine and fucking dandy. Are you here to pester me into talking to Slughorn some more?”

“Not if you’re going to assault him again.”

He kissed his teeth, “assault? I didn’t even touch the man.”

Gansey raised his brow. “_ Verbal _ assault.”

“Eh,” Ronan shrugged his shoulders and moved past Gansey, back into the noise of Slughorn’s party. They watched him leave before saying another word to one another.

Gansey turned to Adam, his face softening. He could read the silent confusion in his features, the worry about what his two friends might’ve been bickering about this time. But he bit his lip and resisted asking. Instead, he placed a hand on Adam’s shoulder and looked at him evenly. “Are you alright?”

“Yes.” Adam said. Always.  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow my writing twitter [cvbeswaters](https://twitter.com/cvbeswaters) or come shout at me on tumblr at [virginiakings](https://virginiakings.tumblr.com)  
feedback and kudos are always appreciated !!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello i return with more trash!!!! take my garbage!!!!! i did edit this a few times but there still may be mistakes

Rain and wind battered Adam’s anorak. He rolled the sleeves of the sweater he was wearing underneath over his palms in a bid to keep warm. Beside him, Slytherin students yelled and jeered at the players on the Quidditch pitch competing against the horrendous weather, and each other. It was a heated match, too; Slytherin vs Gryffindor. The first match of the new school year, during the first weekend of November. The players were dressed in enough layers of clothes and protective gear that trying to differentiate one from the other in the grey mist and rain was almost impossible. Except for Ronan — Adam could spot him a mile off.

It wasn’t just his shaved head that set him apart. He was an unerring force. He had the necessary strength it took to be a beater, paired with an unparalleled savage agility and speed. The fact that he didn’t get more red cards or warnings was a miracle. If Ronan had been muggle born, Adam suspected he would’ve been a street racer, into fast cars and hitting speed limits. He shot a Bludger viciously at a Slytherin player. Adam couldn’t tear his eyes away. 

Usually he watched Quidditch matches with a detached dissonance. Unless Ravenclaw were playing, because then he’d be cheering on Blue. He didn’t think he’d ever been quite this enraptured by a Gryffindor match.

Gryffindor were currently edging ahead, meaning the students around Adam were getting more and more riled up. He looked away for a moment and missed Ronan whacking a Bludger squarely at Jack Colibiri, nearly knocking him off his broom and sending him spinning out of control. Slytherin’s hissed and booed at Ronan from the stands, but Adam didn’t join in with them.

Somewhere in the Gryffindor stands, he imagined Gansey to be shouting polite and encouraging affirmations at Ronan. Even Blue was probably cheering him on with the Ravenclaws, considering her lack of allegiance to either house for this match. A chaser on the Slytherin team committed a foul that Adam didn’t quite see, and it earned a collective house groan as points were docked and the lead slipped away from them. The Golden Snitch was their best hope of winning the match. 

Ronan twirled his beaters bat around in his hands, unafraid of dropping it, oozing control. A moment later he caught up with a particularly wild Bludger and sent it racing strategically towards Slytherin’s seeker, Kate Richards. Poor Kate took the blow to the gut, doubling her over. Thanks to Ronan, Gryffindor’s seeker took his chance and rose up swiftly towards where Kate has been with an arm outstretched. Moments later, his fist closed shut around something he’d caught in the air. The stands erupted into applause. 

“That should’ve been a foul!”

“Lynch is  _ such  _ a dirty player.”

“Penalties!”

Adam realised belatedly that he was clapping and applauding too.    
  


—

Blue was insistent on sneaking into the Gryffindor common room for the team celebrations. Adam would’ve been perfectly content to get on with his studies and get an early night, but Blue was tugging on his sleeve and giving him puppy dog eyes and he couldn’t really say  _ no.  _ He changed out of his cold damp clothes and shrugged into a large green sweater and jeans. The sweater still smelled a little like petrol, reminding him of the mechanics he’d worked at over summer. He hoped no one else would pick up on it. Surely the non-muggle acquainted wizards wouldn’t, anyway. 

Social class was a whole different kind of issue in the wizarding world. Of course there was the same stereotyping of clothes and appearances, like Adam’s hand me downs and second hand textbooks. But here he had to factor in his wizarding blood, of which Adam had none in the family, and a whole new world of cultures and politics and customs. Not being clued in on them made him stick out like a sore, uncultured thumb. So Adam did his reading. 

Blue got it, for the most part. Her family were what would be considered working class in the muggle world, and they were all enamoured with muggle customs and traditions. They found Adam fascinating and curious. In return for tidbits about muggle things, they taught him divination and took him in. It didn’t feel like charity when he was helping them back. And it felt strangely nice to have someone think that the mundane way you changed a tire or fixed a fuse was wildly interesting. 

She met up with him on the corridor of the Gryffindor common room, a few feet down from the painting of the Fat Lady. Blue was wearing a t-shirt with more holes in than fabric over a long sleeved striped shirt, and a pair of vibrantly red pants. Her fashion sense confused him but made him smile. She was always confident enough to be her undiluted self.

“Got the password?” Adam asked, hoping she’d remembered to do the only thing they absolutely  _ needed _ to do to get into the common room.

“Yep, Gansey told me earlier. Though to be fair, he tells me the password everyday.”

Adam sniggered. “ _ That’s _ because he’s hoping you’ll come visit him after hours.”

“Shut up,” she thumped him on the arm, “Gansey is  _ much _ more courteous than that. He’d probably get excited over seeing a bare ankle. He’s not expecting a late night rendezvous. Your mind is filthy, Parrish.”

The Fat Lady stared at them as they approached. “Not Gryffindor’s, are you?” she mused, holding a proud pose.

Blue shrugged dismissively. “ _ Red Cap _ ,” she smiled, and the Fat Lady’s eyes rolled back in her painted head.

“Don’t get into too much mischief,” she scolded as the door swung open and the sound of chattering and music poured out. 

Inside, Gryffindor’s filled their common room with riotous commotion and laughter. Despite it only being the first match of the year, everyone was celebrating like it was the last. Another excuse to party, Adam supposed, but he couldn’t deny that the atmosphere was contagious. Across the room, he caught sight of Gansey and Ronan. They were swarmed by students from other years, and Ronan looked like he’d rather be absolutely anywhere else. Gansey’s arm was slung around his friends shoulders, no doubt keeping Ronan in check so he didn’t snap at some poor second year.

Blue grabbed his hand and pulled them through the mass of people towards their friends. Someone spilled a drink on Adam as he squeezed past, staining his clothes right through his sweater to his tshirt. He didn’t get a chance to see who’d done it as Blue hurtled him at full speed into the vicinity of Ronan and Gansey, dispersing the students who’d been pestering Ronan with Quidditch questions. 

“Maggot,” Ronan jerked his head at Blue in greeting. When he looked at Adam, his eyes wandered down to the large stain now soaking his sweater. Adam stared at his shoes sourly. Great. 

“Good game, Lynch,” Blue smirked. “I can tell our practices have been paying off. It’s all those insider chaser strategies I let you in on, I should start charging you. Just know that they won’t work on me though, when we have that face off.”

Ronan scoffed, “looking forward to it. You’re gonna get your arse fucking handed to you, I hope you know that.”

Gansey, who had been uncharacteristically quiet until that moment (and blatantly staring at Blue), turned to Adam and noticed the stain on his jumper. “Oh dear, Adam, do you want to borrow something of mine? Did someone do that to you?” he offered sincerely. 

Adam shrugged, “I’ll live.” He could smell the drink that had spilled on him now. It was sickly and off putting and he was starting to feel gross. He caught Ronan rolling his eyes and glared. 

“Fucking come with me, Parrish.” Ronan snapped, and began leading the way to the boy’s dormitory without checking if he was even following behind. 

When he didn’t move to follow Ronan, Blue elbowed his side sharply and gave him a look. Adam was just a little stunned at Ronan’s sudden urge to be generous. Even if it did come off as reluctant. Grumbling, mainly to himself, he trailed after Ronan up to the boys dorms.

It was strange to suddenly be in Ronan and Gansey’s space. The room was littered with sweaters and written papers and discarded wrappers. Piles of books were stacked at the end of one bed beside their trunk. A map of the world was stuck to the wall. The bed curtains were a dark Gryffindor red, lined with gold thread and tassels. Adam stood still in the doorway, unsure about where he stood on actually stepping foot in their personal space. It felt like an intrusion of sorts.

Ronan opened the trunk under his own bed and began rifling through it silently. The dark lines of Ronan’s enigmatic tattoo creeped out from under the neck of his dark t-shirt, stretching around the base of his neck. There was something familiar about the pattern, but he couldn’t see enough of it to place it. Maybe if he saw the whole thing. But that would mean seeing Ronan shirtless.

Something on Ronan’s bedside table made a startling noise. It sounded like a birds cry at first, and when Adam’s eyes flew to the source of the sound, he found that it actually  _ was. _ A stark black raven sat perched in a silver cage on Ronan’s bedside table. The cage took up the entirety of the table’s surface and then some, and the bird looked less than pleased to be cooped up in it.

“I’ll get to you in a minute,” Ronan said to the bird. Adam tried to remember if Gansey or Blue had ever mentioned Ronan’s familiar being a  _ raven  _ to him before, which was unorthodox to say the least. There was no way it would get on with the other student’s owls. Let alone anyone’s more rodent-like pets. 

_ "Kerah! _ ” it cried again, this time sounding distinctly like a word and less like a vague squawk.

Adam was baffled. “Does your bird talk?”

He was handed a blue t-shirt and given a blank stare. “Yes.”

“You’re joking,” he deadpanned.

Ronan raised a brow. “Well, she can say  _ Kerah _ .”

“What the hell does that mean?”

He shrugged, looking a little smug and proud. “Me.”

Adam didn’t know where to start.

The shirt he’d been lent smelled of cedar. He’d definitely seen Ronan wearing it before, on the off days he decided not to wear something black. The idea of  _ Adam  _ wearing it was strikingly intimate. As a general rule, Adam didn’t accept handouts. Except this wasn’t one, he reminded himself — he was borrowing it. On a temporary basis. 

“Are you going to put it on or do you want me to do it for you?” 

Adam’s cheeks flushed. “Fuck off.”

Ronan scoffed, and the bird in the cage by his bed cried  _ Kerah! _

He remembered himself, and his grip tightened on the t-shirt. “I mean, thank you. Thanks.” 

When he shrugged off his sweater, Ronan turned away. He walked over to the birds cage and retrieved something from inside the bedside tables’ drawers. While his back was turned, Adam quickly ditched his damp shirt and slipped into Ronan’s fresh one. 

“Here you go, you pest.” Ronan muttered as he fed the raven some seeds from his palm through the bars.

“Why don’t you let her out?” Adam asked, intrigued by the dynamic the two had. 

When Ronan turned back around, his eyes flitted across Adam’s newly dressed torso. His lips drew into a thin line. His expression was unreadable.

“I do. But she flies about fucking everywhere, and I figured that all the people in the common room wouldn’t want to get shit on.”

“What’s her name?”

“Chainsaw.”

“Do you even know—”

“I know what a bloody chainsaw is.”

Adam tried not to smirk. 

“It was a good game, by the way,” he nodded, trying to make it sound like a casual, off-handed comment. “But I’m sure your head’s gotten big enough already tonight.”

“Oh no, Parrish,  _ do  _ inflate my ego more.” Ronan’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

“I don’t need to. You know you’re good,” he said flatly. 

Ronan shrugged, “I do. What about you?”

Adam shook his head, “what about me?”

“Not cut out for Quidditch?”

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The truth was, aside from the lack of skill for it, he didn’t have the money or the free time for the sport either. There was no point stressing himself out with more commitments to worry about and equipment to buy when it didn’t go towards his N.E.W.T.s “Not really. I prefer both my feet on the ground.”

“ _ Kerah! _ ”

Ronan swore and cast a look at the raven. “Fucking bird likes you,” he grumbled.

Adam almost laughed. Did Ronan have a psychic bond with the bird? It wasn’t outside of the realms of possibility, he supposed. He was finding that he knew less and less about Ronan than he’d assumed. “How do you know?”

“I just do.” He wasn’t willing to offer any further explanation. His body language shifted, and Adam felt abruptly closed off. Like he’d been shut out. He’d hardly realised that he’d even been let in moments prior. Adam suddenly wished he could turn back time. 

“We should get back downstairs.” Ronan said.

Shit. The Quidditch celebration. Adam had completely forgot. He’d left Blue and Gansey alone in the common room, where Gansey was probably unintentionally insulting Blue in an attempt to flirt and Blue was probably driving him further and further into a hole he couldn’t dig back out of. 

Adam nodded, “yeah, thanks again.”

“It’s fine.” Ronan’s eyes travelled to the shirt he’d leant Adam then snapped back to the door. “Get it back to me whenever.”

—

Since the start of sixth year, Adam’s friendships with people — who weren’t Blue — had changed. He’d always been friendly with Gansey, but now they had study sessions in the library and walked to classes together. Blue introduced him properly to her Hufflepuff friend Noah Czerny, who was strange and airy but ultimately harmless, and even Henry Cheng was becoming a more tolerable presence to be around. Then there was Ronan. 

November arrived, and Adam wondered if Ronan could really be considered his friend, especially when they weren’t always  _ friendly  _ with each other. The more time they spent together, the more Adam enjoyed being around him. It caught him off guard. The unease that Ronan’s presence used to make him feel had begun to soften around the edges. He was even more surprised when he found himself asking where Ronan was one day at breakfast, after a quick scan around the Great Hall.

“Probably at the Hufflepuff table,” Blue said through a mouthful of jam smothered toast.

His brow furrowed. That was one of the last places he’d expect Ronan to hang out on a Tuesday morning. Surely enough, after a second, closer scan of the room and he spotted Ronan there, sat beside a younger boy with golden blonde curls. The boy smiled at Ronan; Ronan smiled back. It was more affectionate and earnest than any interaction involving Ronan that Adam had seen before.

Blue must have noticed his confusion. “It’s Ronan’s birthday. That’s his brother, Matthew.”

Matthew Lynch. Of course. Adam knew of him, as in he was aware of him, but had never actually spoken to him. Matthew was three years below them, anyway. And Adam had sort of expected Ronan’s relationship with his youngest brother to be as fractured as the one with his eldest. That assumption had clearly been wrong.

“Matthew’s a really great kid,” Gansey added, smiling like he knew something Adam didn’t. He probably did. Adam and Ronan were not friends like Gansey and Ronan were friends.

A darker part of Adam felt a pang of jealousy at that. Ronan had two biological brothers — who both loved him, even if he fought often with one — and a third, Gansey, who was always looking out for him. Adam had no siblings. He wondered how different his upbringing might’ve been if he had. Would an older sibling have taken the blows for him? Would he have taken extra blows to spare a younger sibling? 

“Are we having a party or what?” Henry interrupted Adam’s thoughts. “Please tell me we are. I want to get my drink on.”

“Please don’t ever say that again,” Adam cringed.

“No,” Gansey sighed, “Ronan doesn’t want one.”

Henry gawked at him incredulously. “He really is a different breed. Just wait until  _ my  _ birthday rolls around.”

“I’m still mentally recovering from your birthday last year,” Blue scoffed.

“Case in point. My parties are awesome  _ and  _ memorable.”

He wasn’t wrong. Adam remembered the mess that had been Henry’s 16th birthday party. Because he had been completely sober for it, he could recall it in very vivid detail. Henry in a toga. Gansey in a toga. Blue throwing up in a plant pot in the Ravenclaw common room. Hiding from patrolling teachers as they snuck out past curfew. Henry trying to convince them to skinny dip in the lake. 

“I’m respecting Ronan’s wishes,” Gansey said diplomatically. “Who would I be to object to Ronan  _ not  _ wanting to throw a rager for his birthday? I’m not complaining.”

“Boring,” Blue sang, smirking at him. Gansey rolled his eyes in response, but his cheeks were a tinge of pink.

After breakfast, Adam headed back to his dorm before his History of Magic and grabbed the t-shirt he’d borrowed from Ronan the other day. Washed, dried and ironed. Folded neatly into a square. He slipped it into his bag and rushed back to get to class. Returning the shirt to Ronan provided ample opportunity for Adam to talk to him again  _ and _ to wish him a happy birthday — it was a convenient coincidence. The urge to talk to Ronan again was something growing, something gnawing at him, and Adam couldn’t quite place when it had started. 

It was normal to want to talk to friends, though. He sometimes counted down the hours until Blue returned from Quidditch practice and they could catch up. And Ronan was his friend now, at least he was fairly certain he was. Fairly. He wouldn’t want to make the assumption that just because Ronan had been more pleasant to Adam as of late that they were friends, but it did feel that way. (he sort of  _ hoped  _ it was that way.)

When Adam ducked into the classroom, just on time, he was ambushed.

“Parrish!” 

Adam’s skin crawled. There was a pang of guilt in his chest at the fact that his reaction to Tad’s voice was the sense of impending doom. Tad walked with him to his —  _ their _ — desk, a little more skittish than usual.

“How are you? How’s life? I haven’t seen you much since the Slug Club party. Was everything okay? Lynch pulling you aside was quite odd.”

His eyes flickered around the room, searching for the two familiar Gryffindor boys. They weren’t at their desks, but perhaps they were just running late. Even if that was weird for them.

He managed to unclench his jaw as they sat down at their desks. “Everything’s fine, Tad.”

“Oh, good. Good. What was all that about then?”

“It’s not really any of your business,” he said, surprised at the sarkiness of his own words. His tether for putting up with Tad’s chatter was a little short today.

Tad’s mouth formed a sad O. He nodded too many times, trying to recover from the dismissal. “Yes, quite right, I suppose.”

Adam didn’t follow it up, and Tad didn’t speak to him again for a good half hour. A good half hour of  _ quiet _ as Professor Binns droned on and Adam tried to make sense of what he said, so he could take notes. Tad’s leg shook under the desk, tapping with an irritatingly anxious pace. Something was on his mind but Adam didn’t care all too much to ask what. Ronan and Gansey still hadn’t shown up to class. That was unusual for Gansey, less so for Ronan. The t-shirt in his bag was all he could think of as he scribbled down something about wars between giants. When he read over his notes, they hardly made any sense. Adam pushed down too hard with his quill out of a moment of frustration and ink exploded all over the page, staining everything. 

He cursed vehemently and the class went silent. Tad’s eyes were wide beside him.

“Mr Parrish, we don’t allow that sort of language here at Hogwarts,” Binns voice was solemn and serious. Adam had let slip a string of muggle curse words, which were often used by students — such as Ronan — but were generally frowned upon by the wizarding community and older generation as a whole. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave this class, and to attend a detention after classes on Friday night.”

Adam guffawed, “sir, I’m sorry, my quill—”

“Now, please, Mr Parrish.”

“Adam,” Tad began, but Adam’s eyes narrowed at him as quick as a whip.

“Don’t,” he snapped.

He gathered his stuff, leaving the soaking parchment behind, and hurried from the class. Every inch of him burned with frustration and anger. He’d been so distracted that he’d gotten himself excused from class for the first time  _ ever.  _ Would it go on some sort of record? Would it affect his grade? Adam’s fingers itched to hit something, to lash out, but he’d already been seen by all his peers being expelled from class. That was bad enough. He couldn’t then be seen as violent. The violent muggle born kid from a poor family, who had a dad who hits him, who wore a uniform used three times before him, who never went home for Christmas, who got kicked out of class for swearing. Appearances were everything to Adam. They were his make or break.

Instead, Adam headed out towards the Forbidden Forest. He made sure no one was following him or had seen him, and headed down the usual path he took into the most familiar part of the forest. As soon as the ambience of the forest became the only thing around him, his muscles untensed. The mossy floor was damp and spongy from the late Autumn rain. He smelt petrichor. Sun beams pierced the thick canopy and cast dancing light across orange leaves and fallen fungi-covered logs.

When he was far enough in, he took a deep breath and relaxed. His thoughts began to slow down, rationality returning. He had been dismissed from class. It was not the end of the world. Adam could apologise to Professor Binns and make it up to him. He could catch up on what he would miss in that class, even if it meant having to speak to Tad to get his notes. His world stopped spinning.

“I know the way back, asshole.”

Adam jumped out of his skin. From amidst the trees behind him, he saw two bodies weaving in and out of the trunks, talking heatedly. He recognised that voice, though. The minute he’d heard it.

“Ronan?” he called out. 

The two bodies stopped moving.

“Shit."

—

“The fuck are you doing out here?” Ronan’s brows pinched in the middle as he frowned, trailing just behind Gansey as they approached Adam. The two were wrapped up a lot warmer than him, suggesting they’d had the intention to venture into the forest. They were skipping class.

He shrugged his shoulders, “I’m not allowed to go for a walk?” 

“We have History of Magic.” Ronan deadpanned. 

“Yeah,  _ we _ —” he gestured between the three of them, “have History of Magic. So I could ask you the same thing.”

Ronan only scoffed. “That’s none of your business, Parrish.”

“Ditto,” Adam bit back. The t-shirt in his bag felt like a deadweight. 

Gansey looked from Ronan to Adam with uncertainty, as if they were two bombs ready to explode. One wrong move would cause them both to detonate. He wrung his hands anxiously.

“Happy Birthday, by the way.” Adam’s voice was laced with sarcasm that he didn’t really mean. Ronan blinked at him like he’d just spoken another language. Had he forgotten it was his own birthday? Then, all at once, the tension in his shoulders seeped out of him.

“Ha, thanks, Parrish.” He said genuinely, giving him a small nod. Adam shifted his weight and tried to look anywhere but at him — at Ronan. 

“Well, this has been fun,” Gansey clasped his hands together and stepped between them, “but I think we should all get back to the castle. It’ll be tea, soon.”

“Wow, Dick.” Ronan’s mouth upturned wickedly. “You’re willing to skip class with me, but you draw the line at missing meals.”

“This is the  _ one  _ time I’m ever going to skip with you, Ronan. And you know why—” his eyes darted to Adam, and his mouth closed shut abruptly.

Adam felt irked. There was something going on that neither of them were telling him, and the blatant nature of it made him anxious and irritated. But he knew that with Ronan, pushing him for answers only made him retreat further from the truth. Ronan wasn’t a liar, but he wasn’t going to admit to something or explain himself if he didn’t need to. Adam wasn’t going to start fighting another uphill battle. He turned on his heels and headed back the way he’d come.

“Adam, wait up!” Gansey jogged up to stride beside him, looking back at Ronan a few feet away nervously. “Listen, Adam, I’m sorry. There’s— there’s not much I can say, but Ronan had to handle something and it’s his birthday and I—”

“It’s fine, Gansey.” Adam dismissed, shoving his cold hands in his pockets. And then, as an afterthought, “you probably have detention, you know.”

He wondered if Gansey had ever had detention before. The look on his face made it seem like he hadn’t. It would be a new experience for the both of them. Bonding. Ronan, on the other hand, was a detention veteran.

Ronan’s hand clamped down on Gansey’s shoulders as they approached the courtyard and he caught up with them, “first class ditch, first detention, think of all these life experiences I’m treating you to, Dick.”

“Yeah, really enriching stuff, Ronan. Cheers.”

“Ooh, touchy.” Ronan teased. “I’m just gonna talk to Parrish, I’ll see you in the common room, okay? Don’t get caught on the way,” he winked at Gansey, whose eyes rolled far back in his head. Adam figured that even if Gansey did get caught not in class on his way back, he’d be able to charm his way out of  _ any _ situation with a teacher. Most of them adored him.

Once Gansey’s silhouette disappeared, Ronan turned squarely to Adam. They stood in the courtyard, under the arch, sheltered from the rain that had just started spitting from above. Every inch of skin of Adam’s body was covered in goosebumps. If he’d been more intuitive, he’d have brought his cloak to class, but he hadn’t exactly expected to be kicked out. His day was not going as planned.

“You look cold,” Ronan said, as if he’d just read Adam’s mind. Or maybe he’d just noticed that Adam had begun to shiver. Now they were stood still, the cold was even more jarring.

“That’s because I am cold.”

“A jumper with a few less holes in would probably help with that,” he shrugged.

“Thanks for the insight.” Adam snapped testily. Ronan only smiled.

“Look, I know Dick and I seem all secretive right now, but we do have good reason. There’s someone… someone I care about, that I have to look after, and only Gansey and one other person knows about them. It’s hard to explain.” The slow and careful way Ronan chose his words made Adam feel like it was actually kind of a big deal that he was even telling him  _ this _ much about what he’d been up to. Even if it was nonsensical and vague.

“Then why are you telling me?” 

Ronan grinned crookedly. “You don’t have any other friends, Parrish. Who are you gonna tell?” 

“Shut up,” he said as he felt his own mouth mirror Ronan’s, curving into a strange, contagious smile. The constantly tilting banter that they’d found was confusing and exhilarating, and unlike any other friendship Adam had. It was nothing like the rapport he’d built with Gansey or his relationship with Blue. It was push and pull. It was walking a fine line between laughing and screaming.

It felt like something he needed.

Adam reached into his bag and pulled out Ronan’s t-shirt. “This is yours,” he extended it to him, and for a minute all Ronan did was stare at it.

Gingerly, Ronan’s hands wrapped around it and he pulled the fabric from Adam’s grip. He watched it slip away from him and suddenly felt lighter.

“You washed it.”

“Yeah.”

“It smells—”

Adam’s cheeks heated. “I’m sorry, if you don’t like the detergent, you can just wash it again. I didn’t want to give it back to you dirty.” The words poured out of his mouth in an unnecessary, defensive rush.

Ronan blinked at him, “I was going to say that it smells like you.”

“Oh. Is that bad?”

Despite the cold wind around them, and the rain that was growing heavier, Adam felt a surge of heat around them. It was as if someone had lit a fire at their feet. Adam just wanted to move closer to it. (and, consequently, Ronan.)

Ronan’s mouth opened just as the bell in the clock tower rang. The courtyard wasn’t far from it, so the noise was amplified, and Adam’s deaf ear buzzed. He blinked, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to shake the ringing it had triggered out of his head. When he opened his eyes, Ronan was gone.

—

He was asleep when a pecking at the window woke him, which was particularly unusual considering the Slytherin dorms were at dungeon-level. The windows were too high up to look out of but big enough to let light in, and the silver glow of the moon cast long shadows across the dorm. Adam rubbed his eyes and squinted up at where the noise was coming from. No one else in the room woke.

Gently, he grabbed a chair and climbed atop it to open the window. In the darkness he could see an owl perched precariously on a branch, trying not to fall into the lake that lapped quietly against the stone walls of the dorm. He recognised it as Owain, Gansey’s owl, and that he was clutching a small piece of parchment.

Adam held out his hand and Owain dropped the paper into it. The owl hooted and flew off the moment it was delivered, back up to a higher point of the castle. He climbed back down and sat on the edge of his bed, brow furrowed as he unfurled the parchment.

_ Ronan missing. Meet on first floor in 5. Gansey _

He read and reread the first two words. He struggled to process it as anything other than a joke, and a hundred questions raced through his head. Before he knew it, Adam was pulling on his shoes and grabbing a coat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have no idea if other students can enter the gryffindor common room if they have the password so just pretend they can even if they can't, my hp knowledge is rusty. anyway i hope this was okay !! another update will probably take a similar amount of time as this one did as I'm trying to make every chap around 7k words :))  
follow my writing twitter [cvbeswaters](https://twitter.com/cvbeswaters) or come shout at me on tumblr at [virginiakings](https://virginiakings.tumblr.com)  
feedback and kudos are always appreciated !!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's the way I haven't updated in almost exactly a year for me

Gansey was losing it. When he made it to the first floor, after only narrowly escaping being caught by Filch, he found Gansey pacing in the shadows. He was muttering things that Adam couldn’t make out or understand whilst Blue frowned at him with concern.

“What’s going on?” Adam whispered.

Their heads snapped in his direction. “Adam, good, you’re here,” Gansey sighed. “Ronan’s been M.I.A. since dinner.”

Adam raised a brow. “Is that a reason to worry? Doesn’t he usually disappear and go down his own thing?” If the times he’d seen Ronan mysteriously wandering around the grounds were anything to go by, he wouldn’t have thought it was abnormal behaviour for him.

“Yes,” Gansey nodded, “but this is different. It  _ feels  _ different. It’s his birthday.” 

Adam could feel the stress in his voice, the way he was trying above all else to keep his tone even. He noticed Blue sidle a little closer to Gansey’s side. Her brows were knitted tightly together. Both of them cared about Ronan a lot; that much was undeniably true. And they’d come to Adam for help because they trusted him, and consequently, trusted him with Ronan. To help  _ them _ help  _ him _ . Or maybe he was just overthinking it.

“We’re going to look for him,” she told him, the  _ we _ clearly implying Adam, too.

“Where would we even begin?” he asked them. “The castle is  _ huge _ , we could get caught, and it’s too dangerous to go out and look in the forest.”

Blue and Gansey shared a look, “we know where to start,” she sighed.

“Ever heard of the Shrieking Shack?” 

He had. He’d heard that it was haunted, that you could hear screams inside it, and that no one in their right mind should ever go within a foot of it. The idea of  _ Gansey  _ ever going there, for whatever godforsaken reason, was incomprehensible. Surely he was smarter than that. He  _ was  _ smarter than that. 

But Blue extended her hand out to him, “c’mon.”

Adam tailed them out of the castle and into the grounds, running amidst the darkness of the shadows and stopping to listen out for any patrolling teachers every now and then. It was unlikely, though. The more likely event was that they got caught out by something prowling the Forbidden Forest. But Gansey didn’t take them that far out.

He stared up at the Whomping Willow, swaying gently against the star speckled sky. It looked harmless. Adam knew better. “What are we doing  _ here? _ ”

Blue just rolled her eyes and tugged at Adam’s wrist, pulling him towards its twisted trunk. Dumbfounded, he let her drag him under its canopy of branches, staring at its movements apprehensively. The tree didn’t attack them. The closer they crept, with Gansey leading the way, the easier it was for Adam to make out what they were heading towards. At the base of the trunk, hidden amongst the roots, was a small hole, big enough for someone to wriggle through.

“You must be joking,” Adam muttered, eyes wide as Blue smiled at him encouragingly. 

They weren’t. Mere moments later, Adam found himself on his hands and knees, crawling through the mud and dirt beneath the Whomping Willow. The passage was narrow but wide enough for the three of them to crawl through in succession. Blue led the way, her wand glowing up front. Adam had the rear. He kept looking back at where they’d come, the moonlight illuminating the opening of the hole. It grew smaller and smaller as they crawled.

Adam thought of meticulously clean and preened Gansey with dirt under his fingernails, his shirt muddied and stained, his trouser knees scuffed, and tried not to laugh. Crawling through underground tunnels with Richard Gansey III had not been on his bucket list for sixth year.

The further they got, the louder the noises at the other end of the tunnel became. There was a thumping sound that reverberated throughout the tunnel the closer they came to the source, vibrating beneath Adam’s palms and sending a shiver up his spine. He had no idea how long they’d been down there, or how far they’d travelled from the castle.

“Almost there,” Blue’s muffled voice called back to him. Soon she extinguished the light of her wand, and the tunnel became to change to an incline upwards.

“Thank  _ Merlin _ ,” Gansey muttered, but Adam only just caught it. The noises were  _ loud _ now, a distinguishable beat of music. The tunnel widened and the trio were able to crouch for a little while until they reached a panel that Blue moved aside. She crawled out of the hole and the two boys followed.

They’d re-emerged in a house. No, not a house. A shack.  _ The  _ shack.

The whole place was hanging by a thread; panels were missing from the walls, glass was shattered in the windows, the floorboards creaked uneasily. Music pounded throughout the building. It sounded like techno, or drum and bass. There were no lyrics. Just a relentless beat that triggered Adam’s tinnitus in both ears. 

The three of them were also horrendously dirty. Their clothes were mussed. Adam shook his head and flecks of dirt and dust tumbled out of his hair. Blue had smudges of mud on her face and neck.

Gansey cringed, “ah.”

“What?” Adam frowned, holding a hand up to his hearing ear. “What’s wrong?”

“I think I know what’s going on.”

Blue’s face had turned angry. Furious, even. Her brows knitted tightly, making the skin between them crease. “That little shit-"

Adam stared at them, “what the fuck’s going on?”

There were people on the floors above them. Footsteps thudded across the ceiling and laughter echoed through the cracks in the floorboards. Adam heard a bottle smash. The music cranked louder.

Turning on her heels, Blue stormed towards the rickety staircase in the hallway of them room they’d ended up in. Gansey tumbled after her, “Blue, wait!”

Confused and irritated, Adam had no choice but to follow his two friends, avoiding the broken steps as they all barrelled through the darkness up to the top floor of the Shrieking Shack. The music was so loud now that Adam was grimacing. He couldn’t really afford to lose the hearing in  _ both _ of his ears

bright, multi-coloured light bloomed out of the three rooms on the top floor. All of the doors were open. Laughter and shouting tumbled out of them, muffled under the vicious bassline pumping through the house. Blue whipped around to them.

“Gansey, you check that room. I’ll check this one. Adam,” she pointed to the room at the far end of the hallway, “you check that one. Then move downwards and do the same thing.” He was thankful then that he’d become better at lip reading since being rendered partially hearing. 

Adam blinked, “what for?” he yelled over the top of the music.

Blue guffawed at him, “ _ Ronan _ .”

His mouth formed a hard  _ O. _ Shit.

The three split up, Adam approaching his assigned room and pushing away the anxiety gnawing at him. Sinister red light seeped out from under the doorframe. The music inside this room was more of a screeching, shouting, disorienting melody. If you could even call it a melody. He caught his breath and pushed it open.

There was a singular figure in the room, slumped across an old mattress. The red lighting gave Adam a headache. There was a muggle speaker placed in the corner of the room pumping out music. He accidentally kicked a litter of glass bottles as he approached the body apprehensively.  _ Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. _

He was about a metre away when he realised.

Painted blood red, Ronan looked like a demon. His eyes were shut like he was asleep, but there wasn’t any way that someone could fall asleep whilst that horrendous music was blaring. More bottles surrounded Ronan, like a shroud of flowers at a funeral. Adam’s heart was pounding out of his chest. It was impossibly hard to breathe, think and feel at the same time. 

Adam reached gently for Ronan’s wrist. The second he felt a pulse, tension seeped out of his body in a tidal wave of anxiety.

“Fuck,” he muttered, staring helplessly at Ronan’s body. He was wearing a black tank top with black jeans, and even in the dark monochromatic light of the room Adam could see bruises and scratches on his arms. Ronan’s enigmatic tattoo appeared to wrap around his shoulders and neck like a vice, tendrils gripping his skin viciously.

Ronan’s eyes fluttered hazily open and Adam flinched, dropping Ronan’s wrist. He didn’t –  _ couldn’t  _ – move. 

Ronan scrubbed a hand across his face and frowned at Adam. “How’d you get here?” he slurred sleepily.

“What do you mean?” Adam managed, shouting over the music.

“You were just—” Ronan laughed unlike Adam had ever heard him do before. It was  _ giddy _ . “I’m still dreaming, aren’t I?” he hiccupped.

Adam stared at him. “No.”

“Liar,” Ronan smirked, reaching for a bottle behind him.

“ _ Ronan _ ,” Adam grabbed it from him swiftly.

“Damn, you feel pretty real for a dream. Nothing new there, though.”

Adam didn’t understand any of what he was saying. “This  _ isn’t _ a dream.”

“That’s exactly what Dream Adam said.” Ronan’s expression turned dark, and he squinted at Adam. “I didn’t—I didn’t pull you out, did I?”

“Ronan, you’re not making any sense.”

Ronan hiccupped and pushed himself up on his elbows. The red of the room cut Ronan in an entirely new light and it had Adam’s head spinning. Every edge was sharp in a new, more dangerous way. He felt intoxicated.

His skin buzzed as if he’d been electrocuted when Ronan placed his hand on Adam’s. It was a gentle touch, just his fingers on top of the other boys. Ronan stared at where their skin met, and his brows pulled together.

“You feel like him.”

Adam was too scared to move. He was struggling to make out anything Ronan was saying and wasn’t sure if he was hearing things. “Like who?”

“Parrish,” he muttered, more to himself than Adam.

His heart was beating out of his chest. The floor beneath Adam was tilting, and he was unsure if that was just his imagination or the Shrieking Shack itself. His mind was stuck on the sensation of Ronan’s skin lingering on his. Something was crawling its way up his throat. He felt like screaming.

The door burst open and Adam pulled his hand to his chest and away from Ronan, who hardly registered it at all. He was staring at the mattress.

“Fucking hell, Adam!” Blue yelled, charging towards them. “You could’ve told us you found him!”

Adam floundered for a good excuse. There wasn’t one. His head hurt. The three of them were kneeling around Ronan now, whose own head was flung back in laughter. 

“Ronan, what the hell?” Gansey shouted, and Adam could hear the raw pain in his voice that he failed to mask. 

“Is it home time? Have you all come to pick me up?”

“Yes, fuck you.” Blue sniffed, attempting to haul Ronan up by hooking her arms under his armpits. He was a dead weight. Ronan laughed bitterly and dropped himself back against the mattress.

She punched his arm, “we have to  _ go _ .”

Ronan pouted, “it’s my birthday.”

“You’re an asshole.”

He grinned sharply, “yes.”

Gansey reached out and placed a palm on Adam’s shoulder, and the shock of the sudden connection made him jump. He couldn’t stop looking at Ronan. 

“We have to get out of here,” Gansey urged, “Kavinsky’s here with his guys. It’s bad. We need to leave.”

His stomach began doing somersaults.  _ Kavinsky _ was here. He’d been here with Ronan. The knots that had begun winding themselves up in Adam’s body tightened. He nodded. “Okay.”

When Gansey and Adam had Ronan hauled to his feet, with Blue hurling a variety of swearwords at him, they were able to move him out of the rid lit room and out onto the top floor hallway. He found himself looking around frantically, expecting to catch sight of Kavinsky’s shit-eating grin. Fury bubbled under the surface of Adam’s skin. He gripped Ronan’s shoulder tightly and tried to push every thought away that wasn’t about getting Ronan back to the castle.

“I don’t like this dream,” Ronan mumbled as the pushed him into the room where the tunnel was. More glass smashed upstairs. Music continued to pound. 

“It’s  _ not _ a dream,” Blue hissed.

“Maggot,” Ronan muttered back. She cracked a small grin but wiped it away almost immediately.

Pulling a drunk Ronan Lynch back through an underground tunnel probably made it into the top 3 list of Adam’s worst nights ever. By some miracle, he managed to stay upright on his hands and knees most of the way. He kept stumbling and bumping into Adam behind him and Gansey in front. 

“Worst birthday ever,” Ronan announced as they finally crawled out of the other side.

The quiet of the night and the cold air against his skin grounded Adam. He still felt choked, his ears were ringing a little, and his palms were brown with dirt, but Ronan was safe. They were miles away from the Shrieking Shack and the people in it.

Gansey and Ronan were conversing in hushed, slurred voices as they made their way towards the school, Gansey acting as Ronan’s human crutch. Blue hung back, side eyeing Adam. 

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, “fine. Fine.”

Blue quirked a brow, “Okay. Sorry for shouting at you back there, by the way.”

Adam waved his hand, “it’s fine. I get it.”

“Ronan’s just… we worry, you know?”

“About  _ Ronan? _ ”

Blue scoffed, “yeah, sounds stupid. He’s not as tough as he makes out. Shit gets to him. He handles it badly. He has outlets, like Quidditch, but he always gets out of hand on his birthday. I think it brings back too many emotions and memories for him.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, so Adam stayed silent.

“Of his dad, I mean.” Blue added after a few beats.

“Oh,” he frowned. 

Niall Lynch was rarely brought up. Adam knew little to nothing about his relationship with his son or what happened prior to his death, except for what he’d read in the papers. It seemed like a touchy subject, and Adam could empathise. It wasn’t as if he spoke about his own dad often – if ever – and his dad was still alive.

Blue nodded sagely, “Ronan was always close with his dad, closer than Declan and Matthew, I think. The months after his dad passed were… difficult. Gansey knows the most – he bared the brunt of Ronan’s misbehaviour and grief. Anyway, it’s not my place to talk about.”

“Yeah, it’s okay. I get it.” 

“Thank you, though,” she smiled at him, the clips in her hair shining in the moonlight. The messy way her hair had fallen after crawling through the tunnel twice sort of suited her. “We couldn’t have gotten Ronan out of that shitfest without you.”

Adam’s brow creased. “What do you mean?” He wasn’t anything special – not to Ronan. Not really to anyone, he supposed. But not to Ronan. No. 

She let out a little huff of a laugh and shoved Adam in the side, “you  _ know _ .” 

“I seriously don’t, Blue.”

“Right, yeah, sure,” she laughed lightly.

“Blue, I’m serious,” he stared at her, his fists clenched as that  _ something _ began crawling up his throat again.

She looked at him with soft eyes, reading his expression as they walked side by side behind the other two boys, and made a thoughtful  _ hmph _ sound. She knew something he didn’t, something she thought he did. Adam felt nauseous and like he needed to be in bed as soon as possible. 

The four of them parted ways inside the castle, tucked away in a corner where no one would hear or see them. Ronan was still out of it, but now it seemed like he was looking absolutely everywhere except at Adam, or maybe he was just reading into things too much. Not everything was about  _ him _ , especially not tonight. His fists clenched at his sides as he watched Ronan follow Gansey up to the Gryffindor common room, his sprawling tattoo like a sinister shadow clutching his neck.

—

_ “You feel like him.” The Ronan in his dream muttered, exactly as the real Ronan had said just hours ago. Adam’s heart lurched out of his chest. Their hands were inches away on the dirty mattress. The red light made Ronan look like the devil. _

_ “Like who?” he breathed shakily, repeating his own words.  _

_ Ronan’s eyes bore into his. _

_ “Parrish.” _

Adam woke up with sweat dripping down his temples, his breathing laboured and heart racing. His mouth opened and closed like a goldfish as he gasped for air. In the bed beside him, his roommate Glenn stirred, sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He frowned at Adam.

“Man, are you alright?”

He wiped his sleeve across his forehead, “yeah, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s alright, man,” Glenn yawned. “Nightmare, or something?”

Ronan’s face was etched into his mind. No matter how many other images he tried to imagine to replace it with, it stayed there front and centre. The sharp edge of his jaw. The long line of his nose. The blue of his eyes. 

“Something like that,” Adam sighed.

—

  
  


He was sitting with Blue in the Great Hall during lunch the next time he spoke to Ronan.

Adam felt a little like he was being avoided. He still saw him in all their classes together, and at meals, but he could feel a wall between them that hadn’t been as tall or as solid as before that night at the Shrieking Shack. Every brick between them that they’d slowly begun to take down from that wall had been put back up tenfold. 

He was chatting nonchalantly with Blue at the Ravenclaw table about her next Quidditch match when he caught sight of Ronan across the hall, talking with a Slytherin at the entrance. Adam focused and realised belatedly that it was Kavinsky. Even from far away, Adam could see the lack of emotion written on Ronan’s face, and the sly grin that Kavinsky wore in response. 

“Adam?” Blue stared at him with a face full of worry, nudging his shoulder. “You look like you just got slapped, what’s wrong?”

She followed his eyes to the front of the hall — her shoulders tensed. At the Gryffindor table, it seemed that Gansey and co. had caught on too, as he noticed their eyes were also fixated on the conversation between the two. It was Kavinsky’s squat party that they’d rescued Ronan from just a few nights ago. It was Kavinsky who wound Ronan up and made him lash out. 

Kavinsky placed a hand on Ronan’s shoulder and Adam was on his feet.

It took him mere seconds to reach the two, and even less time to swing his fist into Kavinsky’s face.

The hall erupted into noise behind him, but Adam only heard static. It was as if he’d gone deaf in both ears. Blood rushed to his head. A thumping drum noise drowned out all other sound. He was just about able to connect the blood pouring out of Kavinksy’s nose with the blood splattered on his hand. Someone’s hand wrapped around his wrist, and Adam followed the arm up to Ronan’s face. 

All sounds or visuals that weren’t Ronan dropped completely out of focus. He was staring at him like he couldn’t believe Adam was real, like he didn’t recognise him at all. Adam’s fingers reached out and he grabbed onto Ronan’s wrist above where his hand held his. Electricity coursed through them both. Adam was both suffocating and coming up for air at the same time.

Teachers stormed into the hall and up to the three boys but Adam hardly registered them. They pulled the three of them away from one another, but Adam and Ronan’s eyes never left each other. He was scared that if he looked away, he’d forget how to breathe. The moment would disappear, as if it never happened. He couldn’t bear another moment like that. He knew this was real.

Slughorn was in his peripheral ranting and raving about Adam’s misbehaviour. Something was screaming at him in Ronan’s eyes and Adam could feel it in his chest. Another teacher was helping Kavinsky up and he distantly heard the word “infirmary”. He didn’t care. It would go on his record, probably. He didn’t care. He couldn’t make himself care. Not about this, not now.

Then Ronan opened his mouth.

“What did you do, Parrish?”

—

He had detention. Obviously. You don’t get to punch a fellow student and get away with it. Adam sat in Slughorn’s office, tapping his foot anxiously. It had hit him eventually that he’d never been disciplined like this before. He never stepped more than a toe out of line in fear of losing the only thing keeping him alive; magic. Hogwarts. 

“Now, considering this isn’t a usual thing for you, Adam, I think the punishment doesn’t have to be too drastic. Your record here is practically perfect. Perfect grades, attendance, punctuality, extra credit work,” Slughorn read from a piece of paper in front of him, and Adam resisted the urge to peer over at it. “I think polishing the candelabra will be punishment enough, don’t you? Along with the deduction of 5 house points, as much as it saddens me to do so from my own house.”

Adam nodded, “yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“Mr Kavinsky was a sorry state of affairs, I’ll tell you that. The broken nose was easy enough to fix, it was his temper that Madam Pomfrey had trouble controlling. That boy…” Slughorn scoffed to himself as if Kavinsky was just some troublesome youth, and not an awful, slimy, manipulative cretin. At least, in Adam’s opinion.

“Sorry, sir,” he repeated again.

“Well, I think that’ll be all, Mr Parrish. You can start with the candelabra on the fourth floor corridor.”

Adam nodded and rushed himself out of the office as politely as he could. He could’ve gotten much worse, really. Some polishing and cleaning would be the least of his worries. Kavinsky wasn’t a lone wolf, and Adam’s assault on him wouldn’t just be slept under the rug --  _ especially _ considering Kavinsky was in Slytherin, like Adam.

He’d have his cronies to deal with, now. Prokopenko, Jiang, Swan… all insufferable, all despicable. All probably after him. And then there was Ronan. 

He hadn’t had a chance to explain why he’d done it, because honestly, he couldn’t put it into words. The idea of standing in front of Ronan and coming up with a reason for why he’d punched Kavinsky’s lights out in front of him made Adam’s stomach lurch. But it wasn’t something he could avoid forever.

The fourth floor corridor was deathly quiet. It was an hour before bedtime curfew, so most students were having downtime in their dorms or studying in the library. At least there would be no one around to leer at Adam. He was sure there’d be lots of people with  _ lots  _ to say. They’d say  _ there he was, the perfect image of a boy born into nothing, knowing his place cleaning the candelabra. Just another Filch in the making. Council estate trash.  _ Adam’s background was hardly a secret. No amount of sewing and fixing could hide the worn look of his clothes, or the scuffed toes of his shoes.

Adam had only polished one piece of silver from a candelabra when he heard the screech of shoes against floor. His head whipped around.

“ _ There _ you are,” Blue sighed, rushing towards him.

“Why are  _ you  _ here?” he frowned, letting her envelope him into her arms.

She stared at him with wide eyes, “um, hello? Are we not discussing today’s events?”

Adam stared at the silverware in his hand, “do we have to?”   


“Yes!” she squawked, shoving his shoulder.

Blue grabbed his wrist and pulled him into a classroom on the corridor. She cast a quick spell and the lights in the room illuminated, lighting up her face. 

“Explain,” she demanded.

It was only Blue. He could tell her things. There weren’t many secrets between them. Yet, the words wouldn’t form on his tongue. He stared at her haplessly. 

“You got detention,” she stated, counting on her fingers.

“Yes.”

“You punched Kavinsky,” she held up a second finger.

“Yes.” 

“For Ronan,” Blue’s brow quirked.

He hesitated, “yes.”

She grinned, that same smile that suggested she knew something that he didn’t, “because you  _ like _ him.”

Adam’s mouth went dry. 

“God, I knew it!” she laughed, “I  _ knew  _ it.”

“That’s not-” he tripped over his own tongue, “that’s  _ not  _ it.”

It wasn’t, was it? Adam’s head hurt. He hadn’t really liked anyone since he dated Blue, dating just hasn’t been on his mind since. Of course he’d had little crushes here and there, but none of that felt like how he felt about Ronan -- if you could call that a crush. And even if he  _ did  _ like Ronan, the issue wasn’t that Ronan was a guy, it was that he was  _ Ronan.  _

Sharp, hot headed, snarky Ronan, who cared about his friends so much that it tore him apart. Who seemed to care about Adam, too, for some reason. Adam remembered the way his fingers had itched to touch Ronan again after that moment in the Shrieking Shack.  _ You feel like him _ , he’d said.

He realised all of a sudden that Blue had gone quiet. She was looking at him peculiarly. 

“Are you okay?” she asked, her tone much softer than her excitement a few moments ago.

Adam scrubbed his palm across his face and groaned, “I don’t know. Yeah, I guess. I’m fine.”

“It’s okay if you’re not,” she placed her hand on his shoulder, “it’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. But I don’t think you can keep bottling this up, Adam. You can’t just go around punching people,  _ even _ if they are Kavinsky.”

He laughed, “I guess.” 

His knuckles were red and bruised from the impact of the hit, and he recalled the colour of his father’s hands after their altercations. It made him feel nauseous. He clenched his fist and tried to wish away the throbbing pain.

Blue knocked his shoulder lightly, “we can go raid my Honeydukes stash instead? I’ll help you with the polishing, and then we can go give ourselves a sugar high. Deal?” 

He nodded, “deal.”

—

“So, what do you think?”

Adam blinked back to reality, not realising he’d completely zoned out whilst Gansey had been talking to him in class. He hadn’t meant to; he’d been up all night talking with Blue and crashed from both exhaustion and a sugar slump at around 3am, meaning his attention span wasn’t exactly 100% today.

He frowned, “sorry, what do I think about what?”

Gansey sighed, “my plan to ask out Blue.”

Ronan barked incredulously beside them. Gansey whipped around to give him a tired look. “If you don’t have anything useful to contribute, I’d rather you not speak at all.”

“Consider me scolded,” Ronan dramatically feigned offence.

“Just go for it,” Adam shrugged, flipping through his potions textbook. He was adamantly still avoiding Ronan’s eyes. When they’d entered the classroom before, Ronan had given Adam a small nod and taken a seat beside him. That was it. No questions. It was as if he’d forgotten yesterday's incident. Or he just didn’t care. Either situation wasn’t great, really, but Adam could deal with pretending everything was normal and fine, for now.

Gansey worried his bottom lip with indecision, “I only ask you, Adam, because you have romantic experience with her. Some insight into the inner workings of her mind would be fantastic.”

“We barely dated. We went on a few awkward dates and then decided we were better as friends. I have absolutely no insight.”

Ronan laughed, “yeah, Dick, you really think Parrish has game?” 

“Oh, ‘cause you’ve had  _ so _ many successful relationships,” Adam bit back, a little affronted.

“How would you know?” Ronan taunted. It felt like he was being challenged, but Adam didn’t know why or what for. It riled him up.

“Right, so who are we counting here, exactly? Kavinsky?” 

The words slipped out before he could rethink it, his mouth and his temper working at 10 times the speed of his rationale. His fist throbbed empathetically at just the mention of Kavinsky’s name. Ronan cracked a wicked, cold grin, sitting as still as stone. Neither of them spoke or moved. Tension crackled between them.

“Alright, I think everyone should take a deep breath,” Gansey said hesitantly.

Before either Adam nor Ronan could make another move, Slughorn called for the attention of the class. He seemed particularly chipper today and excited with the selection of vials and liquids before him at the front of the classroom. A large cauldron was bubbling quietly on his table with pink smoke gently billowing from it.

“Class, can you tell me what love smells like?” he asked, clasping his hands together. Quiet murmurs rumbled around the room. Adam tried to look closer at exactly what Slughorn had prepared, but couldn’t recognise much from far back.

The professor beckoned, “come, come closer,” and obediently a group of girls whispering excitedly to one another shuffled quickly forward. Gansey, Adam and Ronan were shoved to the back, peering past everyone. 

Gansey raised his hand, “love doesn’t have a smell. Unless, perhaps you mean the smell of the person you love.”

“Ah,” Slughorn smiled, “very close. This, here,” he gestured to the cauldron in front of him, “ is Amortentia, the most powerful love potion there is, and it smells different to each person depending on what attracts them. Consuming the potion will make the person obsessive about the person who gave it to them, and can be quite dangerous. But, the smell is rather harmless.”

The class looked in closer at the cauldron. Adam had heard of it, of course, but never had the desire to use or try one. In a bid to get a better view, Adam stepped forward and caught his foot on Gansey’s. He stumbled into the girl in front of him, almost pushing her over, and every head in the class whipped to stare at him.

Slughorn beamed, “ah, Parrish, perfect! Come over here.”

Adam guffawed at him, “sorry, sir, I was just--”   


“Here, Parrish, come now. It won’t bite!” he laughed, beckoning him closer.

He was sure he’d gone red in the face. Gansey looked at him apologetically. The class's eyes were still on him, so Adam reluctantly met Slughorn at the front of the class. He could see now that the potion itself was a beautiful iridescent colour, and the moment he breathed in its smell he felt light headed.

“Now,” Slughorn clasped his hands, “do you smell anything?”

He smelt cedar. There was a damp hint to it, but not in a bad way; it was akin to petrichor, the smell of the earth after rain, like the Forbidden Forest after a long dry spell. And something more artificial, like an aftershave, or a laundry detergent. It was strikingly familiar. It was-- it was the same thing he’d smelt when Ronan had leant him a shirt after the Quidditch match. Adam took a deeper breath and time moved slowly around him.

His eyes flitted instinctively back to the class, to where Ronan and Gansey stood, and he felt the heat in his cheeks. He stared furiously at the cauldron -- anywhere other than where his friends stood.  _ Why  _ did Slughorn have to choose him?

Adam cleared his throat, “not really.”

Slughorn frowned, “are you sure? No familiar scents.”

He was sure the colour in his cheeks had spread to his ears. “Maybe-- maybe something earthy,” he mumbled, wanting nothing more than to shrink back into the back of the classroom.

“Ah, there you are,” the professor clapped Adam on the shoulder, making him jolt. “Incredible stuff, really. It’s rumoured that a child conceived under the effects of it will never be able to feel or experience true love.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, stepping back into the crowd of students. He wished desperately that the shadows of the class would swallow him whole.

Gansey knocked his shoulder lightly, “earthy, eh? Are we looking for a gardener for you, then?” he joked. 

Adam smiled weakly. He was acutely aware of Ronan side-eyeing him. The sooner he could escape back to the dorms, the better. The sooner he would be able to breathe properly. Some of the girls in the class volunteered themselves next, gushing over the alleged scent of honey or lavender. 

Every time Adam inhaled, he smelt it. Earth. Aftershave. Petrichor. 

Ronan.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope ur all well!! hmu on tumblr @ virginiakings or twt @ kahnwaidjonas :)

**Author's Note:**

> yes i said ronan has an irish accent yes i was right to do so  
follow my writing twitter [cvbeswaters](https://twitter.com/cvbeswaters) or come shout at me on tumblr at [virginiakings](https://virginiakings.tumblr.com)  
feedback and kudos are always appreciated !!


End file.
